Page 78 of Ignited in Iceland
Iris laughed. ‘Thanks Bjarkey. That sounded like good advice but I’m none the wiser. Can I jump out here?’
Bjarkey pulled over and Iris got out and thanked her. She beeped the horn as she drove away. It felt like encouragement for what was about to happen next, and Iris loved her for it.
She took a deep breath and began following Rachel’s directions through the town to Anna and Ned’s house. As she went past Te & Kaffi, she called in for coffee and pastries, buying a selection so that Siggi could pick his favourite.
It only took a few minutes more for her to find the cobbled path to the little house. There were indeed trolls in the garden, similar to gnomes, but less friendly looking. There was a tiny veranda with a couple of chairs on it and there were fairy lights twisted along the railing and along the the tops of the garden fences. It was idyllic. And Siggi was just on the other side of the door.
27
SHE KNOCKED ON the door and heard Siggi call out in Icelandic. It was unlocked when she tried the handle, so she went inside assuming he might have said come in.
‘Hi,’ she said, poking her head around the door. It opened straight into a spacious lounge which had a mezzanine level over half of it. It was decorated as if it were from the pages of an interior design magazine. In fact, Iris recognised lots of the cushions, throws and lamps as having come from Snug. The high-end look didn’t mean it wasn’t cosy and lived-in, though. It looked exactly like the home she would love to have one day.
‘Iris.’ Siggi was lying on the sofa, a book open on his chest and his leg, now sporting one of those surgical boots propped up on the cushions across the back. He began pushing himself to sitting.
‘Don’t get up,’ she said, closing the door behind her and coming inside properly. ‘I’m so sorry I wasn’t there this morning.’ She took her coat off and hung it on a spare hook on the wall by the door. Unlacing her boots, she put them neatly by Siggi’s and padded over to the chair.
‘You don’t need to be sorry. The eruption is why you are here. Of course you were working.’
Iris tried to catch any bitterness in his tone, but there was none. He genuinely didn’t mind.
‘How are you?’
‘This will slow me down for a while,’ he said, pointing to his leg. ‘I am lucky Ned and Anna are letting me stay here, otherwise I would have to stay at Jonas’s and that would be worse than this.’
Iris laughed. ‘I bought coffee and pastries.’
‘Now that is worth sitting up for.’ He slowly pushed himself up, propping himself in the corner of the sofa.
‘Do you want a cushion under your leg?’
‘Thanks, if you can find one.’
There were about thirty-four cushions within arm’s reach. She chose a couple of the bigger ones, gently lifting his boot and stacking them underneath.
‘You get first dibs on the pastries,’ she said, handing him the bag.
‘I should get lost more often.’
She said nothing for a minute. The feeling of dread she’d had while he was missing hadn’t been gone long enough for her to joke about it. ‘Too soon,’ she said softly.
‘I’m sorry you were worried. I meant to text Jonas.’
‘What were you doing there?’
He sighed and stared into his coffee. ‘It is so stupid.’
‘Tell me.’ She piled a couple of cushions on the floor next to him and sat down, taking his hand.
‘I have a daughter. She lives in Hraunvik with her mother.’
‘In the house we went to?’
He nodded. ‘She does not know me as anyone but a friend of her mother’s from a long time ago. She does not know I am her father, and that is because for a long time I did not want her to know.’
Iris thought her heart might break for him when he looked at her with tears in his eyes. ‘And now you do?
He nodded. ‘I have wanted to for a while.’
